


Inescapable

by Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw



Series: February Ficlet Challenge 2021 [22]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Awkward Crush, Awkward Flirting, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Old Republic Era (Star Wars), Science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:08:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29671902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw/pseuds/Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw
Summary: Research intern Mike Wheeler has a huge crush on El Hopper, a Jedi knight. But there's no way she reciprocates his feelings. Is there?Pairing: Jane "El" Hopper/Mike WheelerPrompt: Singularity
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler
Series: February Ficlet Challenge 2021 [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2141604
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12
Collections: February Ficlet Challenge 2021: Apocalypse No





	Inescapable

Mike Wheeler wasn’t sure what exactly the young Jedi Knight was doing on their research station. His supervisors didn’t feel the need to tell a lowly grad student and, if he was being honest, he was too intimidated to ask her himself. At any rate, at least she didn’t interfere with the data he was recording of the nearby black hole. 

Well, not directly: there was no denying the way his tongue clammed up whenever she was in the same room. The way he couldn’t focus when he felt the intensity of her gaze upon him. Or (he sighed) the way his coworkers teased him whenever he glanced in her direction. 

On the bright side, he hadn’t embarrassed himself in front of her yet. And their interactions had always been polite - warm, even, if a little restrained. It was with these thoughts that he armored himself as he made his way to the lower observation deck, where he had asked the young El Hopper to meet him.

“Hello,” El greeted him, then nodded up at the black void with its slowly orbiting accretion disk. “It’s fascinating.” _Yeah_ , he thought silently before remembering that Jedi could read minds.

“It’s a black hole,” Mike began, feeling on firmer ground now that science was involved. “Incredibly dense matter that slowly pulls in everything around it.” He walked closer as he spoke, facing her as they stood beneath the main observation window. He continued, painfully aware that a) they were currently alone and b) someone could walk in on them at any moment.

“Incredibly dense?” she echoed, an almost playful lilt to her voice.

“Yeah,” he murmured, edging nearer still. “A collapsed star, a singularity. Once you pass the event horizon, there’s no escape.” She was so close to him now; he was acutely aware of the intensity of her dark eyes. So aware that when she surged up to kiss him, he nearly missed it. 

Mike blinked as their lips parted. “I thought--”

“That Jedi were forbidden attachments?” El shrugged. “We are. But I was born...not a Jedi. And you don’t see me as a Jedi, or as...anything else. Anything but a human.”

“I, uh, thanks?” Mike struggled to imagine what sort of privation she had gone through as a child that ‘being treated like a human being’ counted as an intimate surprise. Then his mind flickered, fully registering something she had said. “Wait, were you--”

El cut him off with a finger on his lips. With her other hand, she reached out with the Force to close and lock the door. “We can talk about that, but...later, please?”

**Author's Note:**

> It doesn't come up in the story, but in this AU, El is raised by the Sith (Darth Brenner?) only to flee when she is forced to kill a man as part of her training.


End file.
